"Everything" is in my art.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone, but I am extremely sensitive to just about everything.

I'm sensitive to light. Sometimes, when I turn off certain types of lights, I feel an actual physical sense of relief.

I'm sensitive to noise. Certain noises and music feel like being mentally attacked. I often take my earbuds with me to pool league or to the grocery store so I can listen to "my" music instead of whatever ambient music is playing. It calms me.

I'm also sensitive to people's gestures and movements: what they say, how they walk, the look on their faces.

I think all of this sensitivity makes me very observant. I notice little details in my surroundings, how things move, how they interact, and how they're put together. My brain naturally starts connecting those observations and wondering how things work.

Like figuring out in my head how a gas pump works while putting gas in my car. Or how a moving animatronic works at a Disney park. Or how they used to manage FastPasses at Disney parks. Or how the rides themselves work.

I don't actively do these things, I just look at something while I'm standing in line for a ride and my brain is like "we're bored, lets figure out how this works".

Understanding how things I encounter every day work helps me understand how I can make things in miniature.

This was evident in my mecate making.

I have dyscalculia. My brain literally was formed with less grey matter to do math. I can do basic math, most of the time usually by using the 10s method, but complex math- forget it!  Sometimes I add when I should multiply or subtract when I should divide. Sometimes I just blank out on a basic math problem and I reach for the calculator on my phone.

This means that figuring out how to do twists with thread and tension was not going to be solved for me with physics equations. (Although It probably would've been easier!)

It took a long time for me to be able to figure out a method to make a miniature mecate. I didn't even realize what I was learning about thread, sewing and weaving in the past would inform how to make twisted mecates.

I cannot make the mecates by twisting with my hands. My hands are too "wrecked" from decades of typing from working in tech..  If I try to  manually twist thread, my hands hurt and cramp.

 Kumihimo braiding was too complicated for me and my brain to learn.

I eventually ended up being able to make a mecate using a Fringe maker, a vise, and a rock.  I watched mecate making videos on you tube.  I researched the way yarn was made.  I looked at photo after photo after photo of mecates.  Then I think I went through at least 50 different experiments with different materials to land on one that looked the way I wanted it to.

My sensitivity gave me the observational ability to decode tension and torsion. I engineered the mecate through visual-spatial reasoning rather than formulas.

I use the same kind of thinking when I make miniature saddles.

Sometimes I'll see a saddle online and, based on the basic Rio Rondo pattern and everything I've learned from making saddles myself, I'll be able to work out how it's constructed without ever seeing the actual process.

This came in handy when I was making my Californio sets. I couldn't find photographs showing how an authentic old Californio saddle was rigged, so I had to work it out from what I knew about saddles of the time period, how they function, and how their various parts fit together.

Californio 2

Californio 2

Western saddles styles are basically simple when translated to miniature.  Their job is to allow a person sit on a horse.  All saddles have rigging straps and a seat. Different saddles may change those things; taller horn for reining; deeper seat for barrel racing; more rigging and sturdier tree for roping: but they're all basically the same premise.

After looking through a lot of Western collectible catalogs and researching on the internet, I guessed that it would have "center fire" rigging. The Californio saddle is a amalgamation of the Spanish saddles, the Mexican style saddles and the western American saddles of the time.. and most of those were center fire rigged.

Years later, I obtained a copy of "Saddles" by Russell Beattie and lo and behold in there is a photo of a hope tree style saddle that was in use around the same time as the Californio saddles and I guessed the rigging correctly!

I think this is one of the things I've come to understand about myself over time. My brain is constantly taking in information, noticing details, making connections, and trying to understand how things work. I don't necessarily think about it as engineering, but that's often how I approach a problem when I'm making something.

But it's not just about figuring out how to construct something. Everything I encounter in everyday life becomes part of what I make. Things I've seen, things I've learned, things I've wondered about, and even things I probably didn't realize I was paying attention to at the time. They all become part of the knowledge and experience I draw on when I create something in miniature.

I may not be good at math, and I may not always know how something works when I start, but I can observe, make connections, experiment, and figure things out. And all the while, I'm adding to that mental collection of experiences that eventually finds its way into my art.

I suppose that's what I mean when I say everything I see, do, and think goes into my art.